Beautiful Lake Winnipeg

Susan Patrick is a librarian at the Ryerson Poly-technical Institute.

Beautiful Lake Winnipeg—by Maureen Hunter, a Governor General’s
Award nominee for drama—was first produced at the (Manitoba) Theatre
Centre’s Warehouse Theatre in 1990. An intriguing mystery about an
innocent dupe caught up in a web of deception, the play begins with a
setup reminiscent of a situation comedy (a delusion encouraged by the
play’s ironic title: a woman’s new fiancé, Ian, and her ex-husband,
Mitch, meet for the first time at her country cottage. But the
ex-husband is menacing and mysterious, and Ian begins to suspect that
Mitch is correct in stating that his betrothed does indeed like to
“live on the edge.” Ian, like the reader, becomes uncertain about
whom to trust—what is the truth and what are lies?—as he is sucked
deeper and deeper into a deadly game that backfires with a shocking
conclusion.